Ahmad Darmawan, 2012 The Correlation Between Students Reading Comprehension Of Indonesian fiction And Their
Writing Ability Of English Narra Tive Texts Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents introductory parts of this thesis. The parts are the background of the problem, the scope of the problem, the formulation of the
problem, the hypothesis, the assumption, the purpose of the research, the definition of the key terms, the significance of the research, and research method.
This chapter shares issues about the research problem.
1.1 The Background of the Problem
Talking about writing in learning English, many people confess that it is the most difficult skill to acquire Gibbons, 2002; Rivers cited in Hadley, 2001.
Richards 1990 claims that learning to write is one of the most difficult tasks a learner encounte
rs and that few people can be said to be master”. In order to be master in writing, Myles 2002
suggests, “Writing skills must be practiced and learned through experience. The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired
skill; it is usually learned or culturally transmitted as a set of practices in formal instructional settings or other env
ironments”. Perhaps writing might be seen as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspect of
„writing down‟ on the end to the more complex act of composing on the other Hadley, 2001. It is undoubtedly the act of composing or writing, though, which
can create problems for students, especially for those writing in a second language L2 in academic contexts. Formulating new ideas can be difficult because it
Ahmad Darmawan, 2012 The Correlation Between Students Reading Comprehension Of Indonesian fiction And Their
Writing Ability Of English Narra Tive Texts Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
2 involves transforming or reworking information, which is much more complex
than writing as telling Myles, 2002. The difficulty in writing has been becoming a serious problem faced by
students. It is caused by some reasons as stated by Sugiharto 2007: The undetected problem that the students are facing in writing is that they
are often not familiar with the convention of written language. That is, they have not yet developed a feel of convention that strictly governs the
use of written language. The unfamiliarity with convention often becomes the main reason why students find it hard to express their ideas in a written
form. Consequently if asked to write, their writing is characterized with typical spoken language features, which is hardly acceptable in writing.
The reasons of the difficulty make objective of the teaching writing hard to achieve. It means that teaching writing is still considered unsuccessful. It is in line
with Lengkanawati‟s 1999 claims that the process of teaching and learning English, particularly writing in this case, in Indonesia is still facing many
problems related to the students‟ learning outcome which is still considered as unsuccessful. It is accordance with Sadtono 1997 who states that eventhough
English has been taught for six years, due to many reasons the result of teaching writing is still unsatisfactory.
In order to achieve the objective of teaching writing, relevant language inputs are needed. Therefore,
Reading in the writing classroom is understood as the appropriate input for acquisition of writing skills because it is generally assumed that reading
passages will somehow function as primary models from which writing skill can be learned, or at least inferred Eisterhold cited in Kroll, 1991.
The development of writing ability of second language proficiency occurs in the same way: via comprehensible input with a low affective filter Krashen, 1984.
Ahmad Darmawan, 2012 The Correlation Between Students Reading Comprehension Of Indonesian fiction And Their
Writing Ability Of English Narra Tive Texts Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
3 Krashen continues, “Writing competence derives from large amounts of self-
motivated reading for interest and or pleasure. It is reading that gives the writer the „feel‟ for the look and texture of reader-based prose”.
This horizon can be inferred that “one of the most viable and less tedious ways is to expose students to reading -- particularly light reading or reading for
pleasure. This is a sort of recreational reading with assorted topics that students find enjoyable
” Sugiharto, 2007. Parkinson and Thomas 2000 confirm, “Millions of people do or probably always will study, and read for pleasure, texts
originally written in foreign language they have never studied, using translations in their, the readers‟, native language”.
Reading for pleasure can be obtained from reading fiction. Reading fiction is one of the ways to motivate chidren or students to have reading habit since it
can entertain readers. “Children want to read and write fiction. Of all the genres, fiction is usually their favorite” Graves, 1994. In addition, reading fiction is
involved as one of the Standard Competence of Bahasa Indonesia Subject for Senior High School students based on School-Based Curriculum 2007.
One of the popular kinds of fiction read by people is novel. Novel is known as the most important fiction for readers the 80s centuries Brower written
in Atwan and Vesterman, 1987. It is supported by Moretti in Hawthorn 2001 who states, “Be it mid eighteenth-century Britain…or mid nineteenth century
Italy…the message is the same: the novel is the most important genre of all literary genres. And its centralization increases with the passage of time….” All of
Ahmad Darmawan, 2012 The Correlation Between Students Reading Comprehension Of Indonesian fiction And Their
Writing Ability Of English Narra Tive Texts Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
4 these indicate the importance of novel of all literary genres at the time and
perhaps nowadays as well. The novel is included into narrative texts Hawthorn, 2001 since the
generic structure and language features of narrative texts are included in novel. Logically, reading novel mean reading and learning narrative texts. Wolfe
www.englishcompanion.com states that narrative texts, e.g., novels, also help us to understand how other texts work by contrasting the different types through the
study of different texts and how they work and are made. He c ontinues, “Narrative
fiction often provides the only encounter with the imagination during the course of the school day; in this one respect, teaching such texts is vital
” In fact, the writer‟s preliminary observation and informal interview shows
that some students in Indonesia only like reading Indonesian novels, and they almost never read English novel because they said that it is hard to comprehend
English novels. Reading Indonesian novel has become the students‟ hobbies recently. Some of popular novels read by the students are Ayat-Ayat Cinta, Ketika
Cinta Bertasbih, Laskar Pelangi, and so on. Meanwhile, for reading English novels, the students only read the translated versions, such as Harry Porter and so
forth. The preliminary informal interview concludes that those who like reading Indonesian novel, they also get better scores in writing English narrative texts.
The fact that those who like reading Indonesian novel, they also get better scores in writing English narrative texts deals with language literacy theory, that
states first language literacy contribute to second or foreign language literacy. As Friedlander cited in Kroll, 1990 claims, “Writer will transfer writing ability and
Ahmad Darmawan, 2012 The Correlation Between Students Reading Comprehension Of Indonesian fiction And Their
Writing Ability Of English Narra Tive Texts Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
5 the strategies, whether good or deficient, from their first language to their second
language”. Furthermore, Cameron 2001 argues, “Teaching reading and writing can utilize any transferable knowledge and skills from first language literacy”.
Another opinion is: When frequently exposed to reading of any kind -- be it novels, comics,
newspapers, academic journals -- in a pleasurable way, readers unconsciously acquire the language of writing e.g., grammar, vocabulary,
spelling, which will become necessary components for writing Sugiharto, 2007.
Based on the phenomenon above, this study is conducted to answer the problem whether there is a correla
tion between students‟ reading comprehension of Indonesian fiction and their writing ability of English narrative texts.
1.2 The Scope of the Problem
